BED-THROATED DIVER. 837 



but very few are procured, the boat shooters leaving them un- 

 molested ; the diving powers of the bird causing only loss of 

 time and labour. 



Mr. Selby mentions that young birds in the plumage of 

 their first winter, are much more common than older birds on 

 the coasts of Durham and Northumberland, perhaps in the 

 proportion of fifty to one ; but that in Sutherlandshire adult 

 birds were seen in June 1834, and though no eggs or young 

 were obtained, it was evident from the conduct of the birds 

 that they were breeding. On the western-side Mr. Heysham 

 of Carlisle mentions " that an adult Red-throated Diver, in 

 nearly full summer-plumage, was caught in a stake-net on the 

 coast on the first of May, 1834. Notwithstanding the period 

 of the year, the bird was very much in moult." Pennant 

 notices having seen a pair in July in the Hebrides, and Mr. 

 J. Macgillivray, on his visit to the Outer Hebrides in the 

 summer of 1840, observed this species on several of the lakes. 

 The Rev. Mr. Low, in his " Natural History of Orkney," 

 says, " this bird continues with us the whole season ; builds 

 on the very edge of a lake in the hills of Hoy ; lays two 

 eggs ; its nest is placed so as it can slip from it into the 

 water, as it can neither stand nor walk on land, but can 

 make very quick way at sea ; flies well, and commonly very 

 high ; makes a vast howling, and sometimes croaking, noise, 

 which our country-folks say prognosticates rain, whence its 

 name with us of the Rain-goose." Mr. Salmon, who visited 

 Orkney with his brother in the summer of 1831, for the 

 purpose of collecting the eggs of the different birds that resort 

 there annually to incubate, mentions that "a few pairs of the 

 Red-throated Diver annually breed on the margins of the 

 small lochs that are to be found amid the hills in the island 

 of Hoy. Although we visited every loch in the island, we 

 were not fortunate enough to meet with its egg ; and are 

 indebted to the son of the Rev. Mr. Hamilton, who very 



VOL. in. z 



